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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Hey Everyone, seeing as my post on "My Favourite Online Stores" was such a hit I wanted to post another similar blog post but this time on my Favourite Online Cosmetic, Haircare and Skincare stores, I love these type of blog posts as they are a great way of discovering great new online stores that you may or may not have heard about before, plus it also serves as a directory which I will continue to update every time I find a new store which I think is worth a mention.Part of being in the online beauty community is sharing each others knowledge, so if you know of any great online beauty related stores which you reckon I should have a look at and potentially add to my Online store directory.. PLEASE let me know! You can share your faves below in the comments section as well. Below is my Online Store Directory, I hope this helps you out next time your shopping

StrawberryNet - A website dedicated to selling High Quality Cosmetics, Skincare, Haircare and Fragrances. This site also offers free shipping worldwide and has a loyalty scheme, the more you shop their the more discounts you obtain.Sleek Makeup - This is by far one of my all time favourite makeup brands. Their products are famous for their high pigmented colours which create bold statements but also for being very high quality yet affordable, plus they also ship to most international destinations and they don't test on animals! PS.. I love the blush by 3 its amazing!Gracie Lou - This website is New Zealand owned and operated and stocks products which are usually very hard to get or expensive in New Zealand, products such as the famous beauty blender, trilogy, mac .. the list goes on. I have shopped here numerous times and love their customer service!Sorbet - I recently discovered this website after receiving a sample of their solid shampoo's in my March Sample Bar box and instantly fell in love, this website sells solid shampoo's, conditioners, shaving bars and more! And even better they boast their natural properties using organic and natural oils and no parabens.BH Cosmetics - If you are wanting to stock up on makeup fast then this website ticks that box 100 times over, they sell amazing makeup palettes which are very much affordable. I love their eye shadows, they are amazing and have great pigmentation plus the colours are gorg. I also love that they don't test on animals!Sigma Brushes - The majority of my makeup brushes are from Sigma, I love this website and I adore their makeup brushes. They are affordable for the quality and if you look after them well enough they will last forever!Natures Bubbles- I discovered this cute wee store at Easter Fest 2013, its run by this really sweet couple who make all of the soaps by hand, they are made from natural and organic materials and work well with any skin type. If you live in New Zealand then you should definitely order some off of their website as the quality of their soaps is amazing!!Carol Priest - I first discovered this amazing brand after receiving a sample of their beautiful Almond and Lemon Balm scrub in my Sample Bar box, since then I have fallen in love with this brand. They are New Zealand owned and operated and make a range of different products ie Skincare, Haircare the list goes on.. The prices seem a wee bit on the pricey side of things however they are amazing and natural!Sedona Lace- A more recent find, this website sells makeup brushes and cosmetics, so far my favourites from this site are the stick it to em eye primer and the pink buffer brush. Their international shipping is pretty affordable and their products last for ages! Lush - If you are not familiar with Lush stores then you are missing out, they offer Fresh handmade cosmetics including their famous bath bombs, soaps, perfumes, haircare and cosmetics.. I personally love their Rose hip body conditioner, its my fave, definitely worth a look at!Asos - Not only is this website a HUGE online destination for all things fashion , they also stock beauty brands such as Benefit, Bourjois, Models Own, Stila to name a few and offer free shipping worldwide .. BONUS!NZsale - A free to join, members only website which regularly has promotions and sales on popular and boutique beauty brands, this website has amazingly discounted products which makes up for their relatively slow delivery time. This is the New Zealand edition, however they do have chain websites for international customers.SampleBar - They do have an online store but I thought I would mention Sample bar, for all who are not familiar with Sample bar and live in New Zealand, Sample bar is a monthly beauty subscription service. Check out my past blog posts for more information.Ebay- I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain what this website is.. but! This website is great for sourcing cheap cosmetics but you have to be very careful as there are a lot of people who sell fake non authentic cosmetic products online through this website.. I have personally have a few experiences with fake cosmetics myself but the majority of the buyers i shop from have been great. A tip would be to try and shop only in"Top Rated Seller" stores.. there should be an icon telling you that they areTrademe - This is New Zealand alternative to Ebay, I must emphasis the same advice goes to this site as it did for shopping on Ebay.. be careful. Look at the sellers feedback before shopping with them. Otherwise this website is also very awesome for finding deals on cosmetics.. I buy my Revlon Colour stay off this website every time.

So you have reached the end of my list, however.. I will be adding to this list on a regularly basis as I am sure I have missed out a few amazing stores along the way plus I'm sure I'll have a few new stores to add to my list as the months go on. I really hope this helped you discover a few new sites to look at. Feel free to leave a comment below with your faves so I can have a look. Other then that I shall see you in my next blog post.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Hey Everyone, I am SO excited finally be posting this video up onto my blog, it has been a long time coming and I apologize for the upload delay.. I have just been super busy but I wont bore you with the details. So as I wrote in one of my older posts, this year I finally got to go to the Mapua Easter Fest which I was pretty excited about, while there I decided it would be kinda cool to take you all with me so tried my hand at vlogging for the first time! I had so much fun vlogging and managed to discover some pretty cool stalls along the way!

I forgot to introduce my friends in this video, you will/would have seen my boyfriend James, Luke, Callum and that blonde tall guy... yeah he is my brother (We look nothing alike) Funny huh!

I hope you enjoyed my first vlog, next time I will try and take some pictures as well to include in the blog post. Let me know if you want me to continue doing vlogs in future.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Hey everyone, I obviously lost track of time this month, because before I knew it April was almost over and my April Sample Bar Glam Pack had arrived in the mail.. scary stuff huh? This month has been super busy for me, I am currently working on a personal interior design project in my room which I will be sharing in a future blog post, I have also made it a goal of mine to be posting more on my blog which i think is working rather well. among other things.

Here is the list of what is in this months Sample Bar box! This months box is called Eco chic which I expected as soon as I read the name of this months box to have a mixture of natural, organic products! So I was very much on the ball as I read what was in this months box.. very exciting! As usual I will have pictures below of all of the products!

Here is a close up of all of the goodies in the March 2013 Sample Bar Box! I can see a few brands I have seen and some that I already love.. I also see some new products I have never heard of before so overall I am pretty excited to dissect this months box.

I have tried a few Antipodes products before but never the Antipodes avocado pear nourishing night cream, I am quite excited to give this product a shot but as I always say I really do hate it when I am given such a small sample to trial, as you really do struggle to get a feel for the product. This usually makes me less likely to buy the full size...Unsure if anyone else feels the same but its kind of a pet peeve of mine. Other than that I love this company and everything they stand for, boasting its many health beneficial ingredients and not to mention it has won many beauty awards such as the Green Beauty Bible award.

Right, so when I first saw this product I thought it was the normal.. tube of product.. Boring.. but atlas this was not the case, I then realized that each of the coloured lines contain different product samples #SuperNoob. The product is called the Evolu travel tower, this is such a cool concept, I love how this sample gives you the chance to try a range of products all in one go!

The sample tower contains a range of different skincare products such as exfoliator, cleanser, eye cream.. the list goes on. Cant wait to try these out as this company boasts how it caters to every skin type which is always a bonus! The sample size of each product sample contained quite a decent amount of product, Quite a good idea for traveling as its super compact, and once these samples run out you could always repot some of your fave cosmetics to throw in your handbag or travel bag for when your on the go!

I just had to take a picture showing you just how cute the packaging of this product is! Super adorable and I reckon it would be the ideal product for any handbag! Its small, pretty and hey, its definitely a hell of a lot easier to carry this product around compared to a bottle of perfume, This product is called the Perfumies Sold Perfume Stick and so far ... Im in love!

I dont know what I was expecting to see when it came to what a solid perfume actually looks like , I have never used one personally but have seen similar products in the past from other brands being advertised. The colour of the Perfumies stick is kinda a yellowy/green colour, it looks very natural looking but my god does it smell amazin.. opening the lid of this solid perfume stick you are overwhelmed by the fragrant scent of fresh florals. YUM! Cannot wait to try this product out, I have heard the scent can last for hours so I am very excited. (PS this isn't even the full lenght of the product.. I was just to scared to push it the whole way up incase in snapped!)

At first glance I really didn't have a clue of what this product was or what it could look like, the brand is called Tailor Masque, I personally had never heard of the brand before so was interested to learn more, but in the meantime all i knew is that it was some sort of detoxing facial treatment!! #SoLost Here is what I discovered after opening up the envelope.. kinda like a mud mask which is designed to unclog your pores and get rid of toxin build up by detoxifying your skin to reveal a better, healthier feeling skin.. This is something I have never tired before but really found quite unusual. I will probably try this to see if it could maybe help with healing my horrid acne scaring. hmm watch this space. Now heres something I'm really excited about! I have always wanted to try out a shampoo bar before but have never really got around to it, so as you can tell I was pretty over the moon when I saw this in my Sample Bar Glam Pack its from a New Zealand company called Sorbet. The product itself was actually wrapped in a plastic material which when in touch with water is biodegradable . I thought this was super cool!! I love this product already without even having to use it because it boasts their use of natural extracts such as cocoa butter, coconut oil and jojoba oil which is also amazing for your nails, it also boats having no bad stuff ie Parabens etc #LoveThis!Last but not least Sample Bar offered all of their subscribers a wee easter treat.. this is the only photographic evidence of this ever existing thought as I some how misplaced it straight away after photographing... in my mouth. Woops!Anyways this concludes this months Sample Bar box , I have added links in the text to all of the products mentioned in this months Sample bar box to make it easier for you all to navigate if you want to learn more about each of the products. Other then that I will see you all in my next blog post!Take care, CreativeGesture

Monday, April 15, 2013

Hey everyone, Seen as I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps lately.. and looking a bit under the weather recently, I thought it was time to spend some money on myself and invest in my complexion. Lately I have been having all kinds of troubles with my skin, breaking out, redness... over it! After being prescribed a antibiotic acne treatment my skin has slowly started to calm down however the redness and acne scaring remains. Therefore I think its time for some retail therapy and of course some new beauty goodies!

I was so excited to get these products in the mail! Its a coincidence that they are both pink, I didn't actually notice this till I started photographing them for this blog post. These two products have been raved about hundreds if not thousands of times all over the web! They are what I call Cult Beauty products.I had been hearing about this miracle healing oil all over the web called Trilogy Certified Organic Rosehip Oil, this oil is suppost to get rid of acne scaring, stretch marks and other nasty and unwanted skin issues.. I had been putting off buying this product for such a long time due to it being quite pricey and secondly I figured my skin would just heal itself.. sadly not the case. I will be most likely be doing a blog post on the results of using this product.. with before and after pictures of course! I also purchased the famous Beauty Blender makeup sponge, obviously this product is not for healing your skin but more for creating a flawless complexion when applying foundation I figured I would give this product a try as I had never tried applying foundation with a sponge. Again I will probably be posting a more detailed blog post about this product once I have had a chance to try it out!! These products are very hard to find in New Zealand and are very pricey so I figured I would make a quick mention to the website I purchased these products from.. before you ask NO this blog post is not sponsored or gifted to me, I purchased these products with my own money. The website I purchased these products from is called Gracie Lou Ltd, its a website that stock popular cosmetics which are usually hard to source... what makes it better is that it is New Zealand owned and operated... fast shipping yo!

So I will be posting about both of these products in separate blog posts at a later date, so keep an eye out.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Hey everyone, finally I'm getting into the swing of blogging on a regular basis, think its something to do with time management so I've been told. Todays blog post I am really excited about, if you are like me and love yummy smelling things then this post will be a treat. Just a few weeks ago I went to the Mapua Easter Fair, this fair runs once every year at easter time and over the years had grown into quite a popular event. This was my first time going to the Mapua Easter Fair so I really didn't know what to expect but with Camera in hand and a few friends we went and enjoyed the lively atmosphere.

While at the fair I discovered this amazing stall called Nature's Bubbles which definitely caught my eye! This stall was selling Hand Crafted Soaps in a variety of different scents, there were also soaps shaped as cupcakes with cute wee decorations on top and even giants cakes! What more could a girl want, this stall was definitely my favourite followed closely by the Licorice and candy stall (haha)

Something I found quite interesting was that all of the soaps had different healing properties as they were all handcrafted from natural and organic herbs and all contained natural/essential oils such as olive and vegetable oils and clays. So in not so technical terms they will work wonders on any skin tone, especially if you suffer from sensitive, oily or inflamed skin (Eczema, Psoriasis.. etc etc) One more thing I must mention.. being natural and handcrafted, I'm pretty sure these soaps would not contain any parabens or nasties!

I ended up purchasing four soaps from the Nature's Bubbles Stall, the soaps I purchased were "Peppermint and Eucalyptus"," Lemongrass and Lime", "Cinnamon, Clove and Orange" and Palmarosa, "Lavender and Rose Geranium Rosehip Oil". Sadly I was running low on cash so couldn't quite afford a cupcake soap but may purchase one in future from their website. Plus I was running low on time as I left the shopping till last minute.

I am yet to try these soaps out as I dont want to waste them plus my room is smelling So amazing right now! If you are interested in Natures Bubbles Soaps I will have a link to their website below. I hope you enjoyed my mini haul.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Hey Everyone, you may or may not have read but last month I started uploading to my Youtube channel again and in doing that launched a brand new series on my channel called "My Month In Photos". This series was inspired by Instagram and also the idea of wanting my viewers to see a more intimate side of my life, me with my friends, my hobbies etc etc..

Anyways without going on to much, below is my March edition of My Month In Photos, this month I celebrated Easter, went to the Nelson Trolley Derby which was super EPIC! Oh and not to took lots of pictures of food (Haha) and showed some of my latest arty pieces :)

I hope you enjoyed this video, its short and sweet but I think its a really cool concept and cannot wait to show you next months collection of pictures.. who knows what I will be doing next. If you have any comments or suggestions for future videos or things you would like to see more of let me know below or in this videos comments!

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About Me

Small town "Kiwi" girl with a true passion for fashion. Fashion has changed me for the better, giving me the confidence to step forward in life and therefore inspiring me to create my fashion and lifestyle blog Creative Gesture.